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THE  FUNCTION  OF 

JEWISH  LEARNING 

IN  AMERICA 


BY 


PROFESSOR  ISRAEL  FRIEDLAENDER 


,VdnG(}i) 


Reprintecl    ky    courtesy    oi    the    General    Publication 

Committee    of    tKe   Students'   Annual   of    the 

Jewiso  Xbeological  Seminary  or  America 

New  York,   1914 


Digitized  by  the  Interhet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/functionofjewishOOfrieiala 


THE  FUNCTION  OF 

JEWISH  LEARNING 

IN  AMERICA 

BY 

PROFESSOR  ISRAEL  FRIEDLAENDER 


R.epnnt«d    by    courtesy    ot    tne    General    Publication 

Committee   of    the  Students'  Annual  or    tb« 

Jewiib  Tbeolo^ical  Seminary  or  America 

N.w  York.  1914 


i?192 1  lyl 


THE  FUNCTION  OF  JEWISH  LEARNING 
IN  AMERICA* 

By  Professor  Israel  Friedlaender 

THE  nature  of  the  subject  no  less  than  the  place  and  the  occasion 
imperatively  demands  that  in  attempting  to  discuss  a  ques- 
tion which  reaches  deeply  into  the  problems  of  the  Jewish  present, 
I  should  endeavor  to  look  upon  it  in  the  broad  perspective  of  Jewish 
history  in  which  a  thousand  years  are  but  as  yesterday  when  it  is 
past.  I  shall  therefore  request  3'ou  to  detach  yourselves  for  a 
moment  from  your  surroundings  and  to  accompany  me  in  your 
imagination  to  an  earlier  period  of  the  Jewish  past  which  is  re- 
moved from  us  by  such  a  millennial  yesterday  and  yet  in  many 
essential  aspects  anticipates  the  situation  in  which  the  Jews  of 
America  find  themselves  to-day.  I  refer  to  the  period  marked  by 
the  rise  of  Jewish  learning  in  Spain, 

For  many  hundreds  of  years  Judaism  had  been  centered  in 
Babylonia,  where  the  foundations  were  laid  upon  which  the  structure 
of  post-biblical  Judaism  has  been  resting  down  to  this  day.  Through 
the  medium  of  the  Exilarchate  and,  above  all,  throi^gh  its  colleges 
and  academies,  Babylonian  Jewry  guided  and  controlled  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  Jews  all  over  the  world.  Although  situated  in  the  midst 
of  the  powerful  Persian  Empire  with  a  highly  developed  religion 
and  culture,  the  Jews  of  Babylonia  managed  to  live  a  life  of  their 
own,  easily  adapting  themselves  to  the  demands  of  the  environ- 
ment which  were  merely  of  an  external  nature.  But  in  the  middle 
of  the  seventh  century  a  new  factor  began  to  disturb  the  serenity  of 
Babylonian  Jewish  life.  The  victorious  Arabs  changed  not  only 
the  political  character  but  also  the  religious  and  cultural  com- 
plexion of  the  Babylonian  lands.  The  young  generation  among  the 
Jews  began  to  hearken  to  the  new  ideas  which  followed  in  the  wake 
of  the  Mohammedan  arms  and  a  deep  religious  unrest,  the  un- 
avoidable result  of  a  mixture  of  cultures,  took  hold  of  the  thought- 


•  From  an  address  delivered  at  tJie  Dropsie  College  for  Hebrew  and 
Cognate  Learning  in  Philadelphia,  on  Founder's  Day,  March  9,  1914. 

124 


bs 

1/3 

Function  of  Jewish  Learning  in  America  125 

ful  elements  of  the  Jewish  community.  It  seemed,  to  quote  the 
words  of  an  illustrious  thinker  of  that  period/  "as  if  men  had  sunk 
in  seas  of  doubt  and  were  covered  with  the  waters  of  error.  Yet 
there  was  no  diver  to  bring  them  forth  from  the  depth  and  no 
swimmer  to  seize  them  and  to  rescue  them  from  drowning."  The 
oflBcial  leaders  of  the  community  looked  with  indifference  and  dis- 
dain upon  the  spread  of  what  to  them  seemed  but  newfangled  and 
shortlived  ideas.  But  when  the  new  influences  began  to  crystallize 
themselves  in  sectarianism  and  religious  factions  sprang  up  which 
did  not  shrink  from  denying  and  opposing  their  authority,  the 
powers  that  be  at  last  bestirred  themselves.  They  realized  the 
necessity  of  making  concessions  to  the  new  spirit  of  the  age,  and 
when  the  presidency  of  the  leading  academy  at  the  time,  the  cele- 
brated Yeshibah  at  Sura,  became  vacant,  they  decided  to  call  to 
this  post  which  involved  the  religious  leadership  of  Babylonian 
Jewry  a  man  who  would  not  only  possess  an  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  traditional  sources  of  Judaism,  but  would  also  exhibit  a 
thorough  imderstanding  of  what  at  that  time  was  looked  upon  as 
modern  culture.  Such  a  man,  however,  could  no  more  be  found 
within  the  ranks  of  retrograde  Babylonian  Jewry,  and  the  Baby- 
lonian authorities  saw  themselves  compelled  to  entrust  the  Gaonate 
of  Sura,  for  the  first  time  in  700  years,  to  a  foreigner.  Rabbi  Saadia 
al-Fa37umi  of  Egypt. 

But  the  remedy  was  applied  too  late.  For  in  the  meantime  the 
Eastern  Caliphate  had  entered  upon  a  period  of  political  and 
spiritual  decline.  Tolerance  and  liberty  of  conscience  had  given 
way  to  bigotry  and  fanaticism  and  with  it  the  external  condition 
of  Babylonian  Jewry  had  changed  for  the  worse.  Their  political 
freedom  and,  as  a  consequence,  their  economic  prosperity  were 
greatly  curtailed.  They  now  lacked  not  only  the  men  but  also 
the  means  to  keep  up  their  time-honored  position  in  the  Jewish 
world.  Strife,  the  inseparable  companion  of  retrogression,  only 
helped  to  accelerate  the  process  of  decline.  The  colleges  and 
academies  whence  light  and  leading  had  for  centuries  gone  forth 
to  the  whole  of  Israel  now  depended  for  their  subsistence  on  the 
generosity  of  the  Jews  outside  of  Babylonia,  and  Babylonian  Jewish 
supremacy  was  at  an  end. 


*  Saadia  Gaon,  in  the  introduction  to  his  Emunoth  xce-Dcoth. 


126  Students'  Annual 

Scarcely,  however,  had  the  sun  of  Jewry  set  in  the  East,  when 
it  began  to  rise  in  the  West.  On  the  Iberian  peninsula,  the  New 
World  of  that  period,  the  Western  Caliphate  was  rapidly  blossoming 
into  strength  and  beauty.  Originally  a  colony  of  the  Caliphate  of 
Baghdad,  it  finally  obtained  its  independence  and  with  the  vigor 
and  courage  of  youth  began  to  erect  a  magnificent  structure  of  life, 
liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  for  all  its  citizens.  The  Jews 
who  had  helped  the  Arabs  to  wrest  the  peninsula  from  the  semi- 
savage  Goths  took  from  the  very  beginning  an  active  and  prominent 
part  in  the  political,  economical  and  cultural  development  of  the 
country.  As  far  as  Judaism  is  concerned,  the  Jews  of  Spain  were 
at  first  dependent  for  their  spiritual  guidance  on  their  brethren  in 
Babylonia.  Their  religious  difficulties  were  solved  by  the  Geonim 
of  Sura  and  Pumbaditha  and  even  their  liturgy  had  to  be  imported 
from  distant  Babylonia. 

But  on  this  gray  horizon  of  spiritual  mediocrity  there  rises  like 
a  morning  star  the  luminous  figure  of  Hisdai  ibn  Shaprut,  a  man 
with  universal  Jewish  interests,  whose  sympathies  embrace  the 
far-off  semi-Jewish  Khazars,  whose  liberality  extends  to  the  col- 
leges and  academies  of  Babylonia,  but  who  at  the  same  time  realizes 
the  necessity  of  an  independent  Jewish  life  in  the  new  land.  He 
supports  native  Jewish  talent  in  the  person  of  Menahem  ben  Saruk, 
but  also  endeavors  to  attract  scholars  from  abroad,  such  as  Dunash 
ibn  Labrat,  who  introduces  the  science  of  Hebrew  philology,  and 
Moses  ben  Hanokh  who  transplants  the  center  of  Talmudic  learn- 
ing into  the  Iberian  peninsula,  and  with  the  men  the  farsighted 
Hisdai  cautiously  transfers  the  libraries  of  the  "old  country."  The 
scholars  in  Spain,  at  first  looked  down  upon  by  their  colleagues 
from  the  earlier  seats  of  learning,  gradually  equal,  then  rival  and 
finally  excel  their  former  masters.  Like  a  focus  which  first  gathers 
the  rays  of  the  sun  and  then  sends  them  forth  into  space,  Spanish 
Jewry  passes  through  a  period  of  spiritual  dependence  to  one  of 
spiritual  supremacy.  Jewish  culture  in  Spain  becomes  the  uni- 
versal possession  of  the  whole  house  of  Israel  and  for  hundreds  of 
years  illumines  with  its  beauteous  rays  the  darkness  and  narrowness 
of  the  Jewish  middle  ages. 

What  has  just  been  said  of  Judaism  in  Spain  of  a  thousand 
years  ago  applies,  with  scarcely  more  than  a  change  of  names,  to 
Jewish  America  of  to-day.    But  American  Jewry  resembles  in  one 


Function  of  Jewish  Leaening  in  America         127 

more  essential  aspect  its  predecessor  on  the  Iberian  peninsula.  For 
just  as  the  Babylonian  period  of  isolation  was  superseded  by  the 
Spanish  period  of  association  with  the  environment,  so  does  Ameri- 
can Judaism  with  its  imperative  duty  of  forming  part  and  parcel 
of  American  life  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  long  period  of  isolation 
in  Poland  and  Eussia.  And  however  deeply  we  may  love  and  ad- 
mire the  transcendent  beauty  and  incomparable  intensity  of  Jewish 
life  and  learning  in  the  Russian  Jewish  ghetto,  the  force  of  logic 
and  of  history  compels  us  to  connect  ourselves,  over  the  chasm  of 
centuries,  with  our  predecessors  in  Spain  who  were  confronted  by 
conditions  and  problems  similar  to  those  with  which  we  in  this 
country  have  to  battle  to-day.  It  is,  therefore,  natural  to  expect 
that  a  study  of  the  Spanish  period  of  Jewish  history  will  yield  to 
us  many  valuable  lessons  which,  with  the  help  of  a  kind  Providence, 
we  may  turn  to  good  account  in  the  new  Jewish  center  now  rising 
before  our  eyes  in  this  land. 

The  first  lesson  which  impresses  iteelf  upon  our  mind  as  a  re- 
sult of  our  study  is  the  unique  significance  of  Jewish  learning  in 
the  life  of  the  Jewish  people.  Great  and  glorious  as  were  the 
external  successes  of  the  Jews  in  Spain,  what  alone  has  survived 
the  ravages  of  time  and  the  vicissitudes  of  the  Goluth  and  what 
alone  has  been  woven  inextricably  into  the  texture  of  the  Jewish 
consciousness  are  not  their  political,  economic  or  charitable  achieve- 
ments, but  the  Jewish  learning  which  they  acquired  and  developed. 
Hisdai  was  the  most  influential  diplomat  at  the  most  influential 
court  of  the  period,  but  what  entitles  him  to  the  gratitude  of 
posterity  is  not  his  political  genius  or  the  diplomatic  skill  with 
which  he  brought  the  insolent  Sancho  Ramirez  and  his  crafty 
grandmother,  Queen  Toda,  to  the  feet  of  Abdarrahman  the  Third, 
but  his  patronage  of  Jewish  culture  in  Spain.  What  makes  Samuel 
Hanagid  a  prominent  figure  in  the  annals  of  Judaism  are  not  the 
services  he  rendered  as  prime  minister  to  the  obscure  Berber  princess, 
Habus  and  Badis,  but  his  introduction  into  the  Talmud  and  the 
prowess  with  which  he  handled  the  Hebrew  lyre.  And  wliat  gives 
Moses  Maimonides  his  commanding  position  as  the  Moses  of  jwst- 
Talmudic  Judaism  is  not  the  medical  skill  with  which  he  treated 
the  vizier  al-Fadil  or  the  fair  inmates  of  Saladin's  harem,  but  the 
"strong  hand"  with  which  he  acted  as  the  "guide  of  the  perplexed" 
to  the  eternal  fountains  of  Jewish  truth.    And  speaking  of  our  own 


128  Students'  Annual 

times,  however  intensely  we  may  feel  mortified  by  the  sufferings 
of  our  brethren  in  Russia  and  however  deeply  we  may  feel  gratified 
by  the  successes  of  our  fellow-Jews  in  Germany,  long  after  the 
victims  of  the  Czar's  tyranny  and  the  objects  of  the  Kaiser's  favor 
will  have  become  dim  recollections  of  the  past,  Russian-Jewish 
"Lamdonuth"  and  the  German  "Science  of  Judaism"  will  stand 
forth  as  the  great  contributions  of  Russian  and  German  Jews  to 
the  treasury  of  Judaism.  And  whatever  social,  political  and  eco- 
nomic accomplishments  a  kind  Providence  may  have  in  store  for 
us  in  this  free  land,  the  standards  by  which  a  later  age  will  judge 
the  American  phase  of  Jewish  history  will  be  neither  our  wealth 
nor  our  influence  nor  even  our  philanthropy,  but  that  alone  which 
will  remain  the  inalienable  possession  of  the  whole  of  Israel,  our 
additions  to  the  spiritual  armory  of  the  People  of  the  Book. 

But  just  as  the  Spanish  period  impresses  upon  us  the  unrivalled 
significance  of  Jewish  learning  in  the  development  of  our  people, 
so  does  it  illustrate  to  us  the  tendency  which  Jewish  learning  is  to 
pursue  in  our  own  days  if  it  is  to  obtain  and  to  retain  the  role 
of  a  leading  factor  in  Jewish  life.  The  deeper  we  penetrate  into 
the  conditions  of  that  period,  the  clearer  are  we  led  to  recognize 
the  remarkably  harmonious  complexion  of  Jewish  culture  in  Spain : 
its  close  and  intimate  association  with  the  general  culture  of  the 
age  on  the  one  hand  and,  on  the  other,  its  ability  to  preserve  and 
to  develop  its  distinct  Jewish  character  and  to  sink  deeply  into  the 
hearts  and  the  minds  of  the  Jewish  people.  Granted  that  Hebrew 
philology  followed  in  the  wake  of  the  remarkable  philological 
achievements  of  the  Arabs  and  that  the  technical  terms  of  Hebrew 
grammar  were  fashioned  after  non-Jewish  models,  the  hokmath  ha- 
dikduh,  the  science  of  Hebrew  grammar  has  yet  become  a  char- 
acteristic feature  of  Jewish  culture  in  the  lands  of  the  Goluth. 
Granted  that  the  glorious  Hebrew  poetry  of  the  period,  as  was 
already  pointed  out  by  Harizi,  owes  its  stimulus  and  development 
to  the  poetry  of  the  Arabs  and  that  even  the  Zionides  of  Judah 
Halevi  imitate  the  construction  of  an  Arabic  Kasida,  yet  the  poems 
of  Halevi  or  Ibn  Gebirol  are  recited  with  fervor  in  the  synagogues 
of  the  diaspora.  Granted  that  the  Jewish  philosophy  of  the  period 
is  influenced  and  determined  by  the  thought  of  the  Muslim  environ- 
ment and  that  the  very  title  of  Bahya's  celebrated  work  is  a  copy 
of  a  well-known  phrase  of  the  Mohammedan  Mutazilites,  the  Ho- 


Function  of  Jewish  Learning  in  Amebica  129 

both  ha-Lehaboth  is  nevertheless  the  classic  work  of  Jewish  de- 
votion and  Yigdal  which  is  in  part  an  epitome  of  Aristotelian 
philosophy  is  an  integral  portion  of  the  orthodox  Jewish  liturgy. 
Granted  even  that  the  great  religious  code  of  Maimonides  is  ar- 
ranged in  a  manner  reminiscent  of  the  Mohammedan  fukdha  and 
that  its  wonderful  Hebrew  diction  is  penneated  with  Arabisms,  the 
Mishne  Torah  has  nevertheless  become  a  "second  Torah"  in  post- 
Talmudic  literature,  and  to  explain  a  "difficult  Eambam"  is  still 
^n  object  of  glory  and  ambition  in  the  Russian-Jewish  Yeshibahs. 
Jewish  learning  in  Spain  may  have  been  molded  by  the  non-Jewish 
environment,  but  in  spite  of  it,  or  rather  because  of  it,  it  became 
the  inseparable  heritage  of  Spanish  Jewry  and  through  it  of  the 
Jews  of  the  world. 

What  is  true  of  the  Spanish  Jews  of  a  thousand  years  ago,  is 
equally  true  of  the  American  Jews  of  to-day.  We,  too,  live  in  a 
powerful  environment  which  we  cannot  and,  indeed,  dare  not  dis- 
regard. The  general  culture  of  the  land  stands  before  us  like  an 
iron  wall  and  we  shall  be  cracked  like  a  nutshell  if  we  attempt  to 
run  our  heads  against  it.  The  only  solution  left  to  us  is  that  of 
adaptation,  but  an  adaptation  which  shall  sacrifice  nothing  that  is 
essential  to  Judaism,  which  shall  not  impoverish  Judaism  but  en- 
rich it,  which,  as  in  the  case  of  Jewish  culture  in  Spain,  shall  take 
fully  into  account  what  the  enviroDment  demands  of  us  and  shall 
yet  preserve  and  foster  our  Jewish  distinctiveness  and  originality. 
Let  the  cynics  in  our  midst  sneer  to  their  heart's  content  at  what 
they  chose  to  brand  as  mtnhag  America,  Jewish  learning  in  this 
country,  like  that  of  our  ancestors  in  Spain,  will  rise  and  develop 
in  intimate  association  with  the  culture  of  our  neighbors.  It  will 
be  American  in  language,  in  scope,  in  method,  and  yet  be  dis- 
tinctively Jewish  in  essence,  the  proud  possession  of  American 
Israel  and  through  it  in  God's  own  time  the  cherished  property  .of 
Universal  Israel. 

Finally  what  gives  Jewish  learning  in  Spain  its  peculiar  char- 
acter and  flavor  is,  as  has  already  been  implied  in  the  foregoing, 
its  connection  with  practical  life.  Ardent  as  was  the  longing  of 
the  period  for  the  higher  and  finer  things  of  existence,  its  culture, 
with  all  its  passionate  quest  for  sweetness  and  light,  is  strongly 
colored  by  the  healthy  hue  of  reality.  Jowish  loarninj::  in  Spain 
is  not  weltfremd,  as  it  was  in  other  lands  and  in  other  ages ;  and  it  is 


180  Students'  Annuax, 

anxious  not  only  to  meet  but  also  to  anticipate  the  legitimate 
demands  of  practical  life.  It  is  not  accidental  that  the  emphasis 
of  Jewish  learning  in  Spain  is  to  be  found  just  in  those  branches 
of  knowledge  which  are  the  distinguishing  characteristics  of  the 
general  culture  of  the  age.  At  this  distance  of  time  we  may  feel 
inclined  to  smile  at  the  passionate  heat  with  which  men  of  affairs 
no  less  than  men  of  letters  were  prone  to  discuss  insignificant 
minutiae  of  Hebrew  philology  or  hair-splitting  subtleties  of  Jewish 
philosophy.  But  a  deeper  study  of  the  period  convinces  us  that 
what  seems  unimportant  to  us  was  an  impori;ant  and  integral  part 
of  the  general  culture  of  the  time,  and  the  failure  to  satisfy  the 
peculiar  philological  and  philosophical  cravings  of  the  age  within 
Judaism  would  have  compelled  the  educated  Jews  to  seek  their 
satisfaction  outside  of  Judaism.  When  Saadia  Gaon  engages  in 
the  discussion  of  what  to  us  might  seem  a  superfluous  question  as 
to  whether  God  is  able  to  change  yesterday  into  to-day,  it  is  not 
the  fruitless  search  of  a  theory  monger,  but  the  legitimate  desire 
of  a  Jewish  leader  to  solve  in  a  Jewish  way  a  problem  that  agitated 
at  the  time  the  minds  of  both  Jews  and  non-Jews.  And  Maimon- 
ides,  this  giant  of  intellectualism,  who  regards  the  study  of  meta- 
physics as  the  ultimate  and  exclusive  goal  of  all  human  existence, 
constructs  the  enormous  edifice  of  his  literary  activity  with  the 
clearly  expressed  view  to  the  practical  demands  of  the  time. 

What  Jewish  learning  was  to  the  Jews  of  Spain,  it  must  be  to 
the  Jews  of  this  country.  We,  too,  are  confronted  by  great  and 
complicated  problems  of  Jewish  life,  problems  not  merely  of  Jewry, 
but  of  Judaism.  We  live  in  a  period  of  great  physical  and  spiritual 
upheavals  in  the  life  of  our  people.  "In  our  own  time,  to  repeat 
the  words  of  Maimonides  in  the  introduction  to  his  Code,  excessive 
persecutions  overpower  us.  The  pressure  of  the  time  makes  itself 
felt  everywhere  and,  as  a  result,  the  wisdom  of  our  wise  is  vanish- 
ing and  the  understanding  of  our  men  of  understanding  is  hiding 
itself."  The  tremendous  process  of  Jewish  immigration  brings  us 
constantly  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of  evolving  harmony  out  of 
the  terrible  chaos  resulting  from  it.  There  is  spiritual  unrest  outside 
of  Judaism ;  there  is  greater  spiritual  unrest  within  Judaism.  The 
perplexed  of  our  own  age  are  more  numerous  and  more  diflficult 
to  deal  with  than  those  of  the  Spanish  period.  In  a  crisis  like  this 
Jewish  learning  cannot  afford  and  indeed  cannot  be  permitted  to 


Function  of  Jewish  Learning  in  Amehica  131 

stand  aside.  It  must  be  called  upon  to  abandon  its  attitude  of 
neutrality,  to  descend  from  its  lofty  pedestal  of  pure  theory  and 
to  take  an  active  hand  in  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  practical 
life. 

Yes,  of  practical  life !  But  in  advocating  the  practical  function 
of  Jewish  learning,  I  should  not  like  to  be  misunderstood.  If  I 
may  for  a  moment  speak  personally,  my  notions  of  scholarship  were 
fashioned  in  a  coimtry  in  which  Wissenschaft  and  Let  en  are  looked 
upon  as  opposites,  a  country  which  is  proud  of  the  fact  that  Hegel 
wrote  his  Plidnomenologie  des  Geistes,  undisturbed  by  the  roar  of 
cannons  on  the  battlefield  of  Jena.  To  be  sure,  scholarship  to  be 
useful  to  life  must  be  detached  from  life.  For  scholarship  is  the 
point  of  Archimedes  which  is  to  pull  life  from  its  axis  and  to  lift 
it  to  higher  forms  of  existence.  It  is  the  pioneer  which,  regardless 
of  consequences,  blazes  a  path  in  unknown  regions.  What  today 
creeps  as  a  truism  through  the  sluggish  brain  of  the  Philistine, 
flashed  but  yesterday  as  a  paradox  through  the  creative  mind  of  the 
scholar.  The  scholar  who  from  the  window  of  his  study  flirts  with 
the  mob  on  the  street  is  not  a  champion  of  scholarship  but  a  traitor 
to  scholarship,  for  he  lowers  scholarship  which  is  the  mistress  of 
life  into  a  handmaid  of  life.  And  to  be  sure,  in  this  coimtry, 
with  its  unmistakable  drift  towards  the  tangible  and  material 
things  of  life,  we  need  more  than  anjrwhere  else  the  corrective  and 
restraining  influence  of  an  idealistic  and  theoretic  scholarship.  To 
repeat  the  favorite  plea  of  Professor  Schechter,  a  community  so 
essentially  practical  as  ours  stands  in  dire  need  of  a  few  men  who 
have  the  courage  to  be  unpractical.  A  certain  aloofness  in  scholar- 
ship is  not  only  permissible,  but  indispensable,  if  scholarship  is  not 
to  degenerate  into  fakirdom.  But  with  all  this,  when  the  purely 
scholarly  task  of  blazing  new  paths  is  accomy)lished,  it  is  the  right, 
nay  it  is  the  duty  of  the  scholar  to  throw  them  open  to  the  public. 
He  who  works  in  a  laboratory  and  rushes  into  the  headlines  of  the 
newspapers  to  tell  the  people  of  his  half-authenticated  experiments 
is  a  sensationalist  who  is  rightly  looked  down  upon  by  his  fellow- 
scientists,  but  once  the  results  have  been  definitely  established,  it  is 
the  sacred  duty  of  the  scholar  to  share  them  with  his  fellowmen. 
This  is  the  attitude  which  Jewish  learning  in  America  ought  to 
adopt  towards  the  practical  problems  of  Jewish  life.  While  keep- 
ing itself  aloof  from  the  dust  of  the  public  arena,  it  ought  to 


132  Students'  Annual 

assume  with  energy  and  yet  with  dignity  its  rightful  position  as 
guide  and  teacher.  It  ought  to  carry  the  lofty  and  weighty  message 
of  our  past  into  the  midst  of  our  present-day  life  and  so  drive  out 
from  it  the  shallowness  and  emptiness  that  threaten  to  engulf  us. 
It  should  enable  us  to  view  the  puzzling  difficulties  of  the  fleeting 
moment  in  the  broad  perspective  of  our  history  and  help  us  to 
find  a  solution  which  shall  lift  us  beyond  the  narrow  horizon  of  the 
present  into  the  luminous  regions  of  a  Jewish  future.  Such  is  the 
great  and  honorable  function  of  Jewish  learning  in  America. 

Having  emphasized  the  practical  aspect  of  Jewish  learning  in 
America,  I  should  be  untrue  to  my  own  plea,  were  I  to  limit  myself 
to  mere  theoretic  considerations.  I  shall,  therefore,  attempt  to 
offer  a  few  practical  suggestions  looking  towards  a  more  regular  and 
more  fruitful  association  between  life  and  learning.  It  is  not  my 
intention  to  discuss  the  tasks  and  possibilities  that  face  Jewish 
scholarship  in  America  on  its  purely  scientific  side.  There  are  men 
in  our  midst  who  can  speak  with  greater  weight  and  authority  on 
this  particular  aspect  of  our  problem.  I  shall  confine  myself  to 
one  single  proposition  which,  though  of  a  scientific  character, 
borders  closely  on  practical  life. 

I  believe  we  Jews  can  claim  without  arrogance  that  we  are  a 
gifted  people.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  in  few  other  branches  have 
our  talents  been  so  strikingly  displayed  as  in  the  domain  of  lin- 
guistics. Corporately  the  Jews  speak  nearly  all  the  languages  of 
the  earth  and  we  often  jestingly  refer  to  the  fact  that,  not  satisfied 
with  the  natural  organs  of  expression,  we  try  to  improve  upon 
nature  by  forcing  our  limbs  into  the  service  of  speech.  It  is  not 
accidental  that  the  creator  of  the  only  successful  international  lan- 
guage, the  Esperanto,  is  a  Jew,  and  one  might  name  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment  at  least  a  dozen  languages  which  have  been  for  the 
first  time  investigated  and  described  by  Jewish  scholars.  Now  it 
so  happens  that  we  have  the  rare  fortune  of  being  the  contem- 
poraries of  a  linguistic  phenomenon  which  stands  entirely  unparal- 
leled in  the  history  of  languages,  the  phenomenon  of  a  tongue  which 
thousands  of  years  ago  was  the  medium  of  expression  of  a  great 
nation  and  a  great  literature,  which,  having  vanished  from  the 
mouth  of  its  people,  remained  deeply  rooted  in  its  head  and  its 
heart,  and  after  following  it  in  all  its  wanderings  and  vicissitudes, 
now  rises  phoenix-like  before  us  in  its  ancient  home.     The  only 


Function  of  Jewish  Leaeninq  in  Amebica  133 

drawback  of  this  wonderful  linguistic  spectacle  lies  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  our  own  language  developed  by  our  own  people  on  our  own 
Boil.  I  refer  to  the  revival  of  the  Hebrew  language  in  Palestine. 
Now  whether  we  be  Zionists,  non-Zionists  or  even  anti-Zionists, 
whether  we  look  upon  Palestine  as  the  land  of  our  fathers  or  as 
the  land  of  our  children,  or  whether  even  America  be  our  Zion  and 
"Washington  our  Jerusalem,  the  fact  remains  that  the  rejuvenation 
of  the  Hebrew  language  in  Palestine  stands  without  a  parallel  in 
the  history  of  human  speech,  and  that  what  the  most  authoritative 
philologists  pronounced  to  be  impossible  has  become  reality  before 
our  very  eyes.  What  then  would  be  more  natural  than  that  we 
Jews  should  be  the  first  to  study  and  the  first  to  present  to  the 
world  this  unique  linguistic  phenomenon  which  so  marvellously 
illustrates  the  contention  of  the  psalmist  that  out  of  the  mouth  of 
babes  and  sucklings  strength  is  ordained?  What  a  disgrace  if  we 
Jews  should  be  preceded  by  others  in  a  domain  which  is  so  essen- 
tially and  peculiarly  our  own?  And  yet  the  danger  of  such  a 
disgrace  is  staring  us  in  the  face.  The  Germans  are  very  active 
in  Palestine  at  present,  and  active  not  only  politically  but  also,  as 
is  always  the  case  with  them,  scientifically.  Only  lately  two  dif- 
ferent presentations  of  the  Arabic  dialect  spoken  in  the  Holy  Land 
have  been  published  by  German  scholars.  And  I  am  positively 
haunted  by  the  fear  that  one  day  I  shall  find  on  my  desk  a  bulky 
volume  bearing  the  bulky  title  "Ausfuhrliches  Lehrbuch  des  in 
PaJdstina  gesprochenen  neuhebrdischen  Idioms"  and  my  Jewish 
self-respect  will  have  received  a  slap  in  the  face.  Verily  the  Jews 
of  America  who  boast  of  their  practical  sense  and  are  at  the  same 
time  alive  to  the  claims  of  Jewish  learning  cannot  neglect  this 
particular  claim  which  is  strictly  scientific  and  yet  borders  so  closely 
on  living  and  throbbing  reality. 

The  other  direction  in  which  Jewish  learning  in  America  calls 
for  stimulus  and  support  is  of  a  less  technical  and  of  a  more  per- 
sonal character.  I  have  pointed  out  before  that  a  certain  aloofness 
in  the  scholar  is  fully  justifiable,  and  that  too  intimate  a  cont^ict 
with  the  crowd  may  even  prove  fatal  to  him.  Yot  the  scholar 
remains  a  human  being  just  the  same  and  like  every  other  human 
being  he  needs  the  sympathy  and  encouragement  of  his  fello\vmen. 
It  is  a  fatal  mistake  to  think  that  financial  support  is  all  that 
scholarsihp  needs  and  calls  for.    Coarse  vegetables  may  well  thrive 


134  Students'  Annual 

on  the  moisture  they  receive  from  the  soil;  delicate  plants  require 
in  addition  the  wanning  rays  of  the  sun.  What  brought  Jewish 
learning  to  such  glorious  blossom  in  Spain  were  not  alone  the 
liberal  stipends  of  the  Jewish  Maecenas,  but  their  personal  inter- 
est, their  readiness  and  their  ability  to  learn  from  the  scholars 
whose  patrons  they  were.  What  in  a  later  age  made  Jewish  learn- 
ing in  Poland  the  leading  factor  in  Jewish  life  was  certainly  not 
its  financial  substructure  nor  even  exclusively  its  religious  sig- 
nificance, but  the  commanding  position  it  occupied  in  the  social 
fabric  of  the  people.  Theoretically  the  scholar  may  well  be  aware 
of  the  importance  of  his  vocation ;  he  may  easily  persuade  himself 
that  the  broad  and  majestic  river  of  life  ultimately  goes  back, 
often  by  circuitous  and  subterranean  roads,  to  those  far-off  sources 
of  learning  which  lose  themselves  in  the  mountains.  But  in 
moments  of  lonesomeness  and  despair,  when  his  hopefulness  is 
blighted  and  his  enthusiasm  is  stifled  by  the  indifference  and 
ignorance  that  surround  him,  the  feeling  steals  over  him  that  he 
may  after  all  be  but  a  superfluous  fixture  in  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity, and  such  a  feeling  spells  instantaneous  death  to  his  pro- 
ductivity and  usefulness.  Old  Europe  realized  this  danger  long  ago. 
While  stingy  in  her  material  support  of  learning  she  manages  by  a 
cleverly  devised  system  of  social  recognition,  such  as  titles,  medals, 
prizes,  memberships  in  learned  societies  and  numerous  tricks  of 
a  similar  order,  to  coax  scientific  research  out  of  the  scholar  as  honey 
is  coaxed  out  of  the  bee.  We  in  the  new  world  have,  thank  Heaven, 
outlived  the  senilities  of  crafty  old  Europe.  The  German  Titel- 
wesen  has  no  attraction  for  us  and  the  artificial  distinctions  of 
Europe  fail  of  their  purpose  in  a  land  in  which  the  head  of  the 
nation  is  just  plain  Mr.  President.  But  what  the  scholar  so 
urgently  needs  and  so  sadly  lacks  is  social  recognition  of  a  higher 
kind,  the  recognition  that  he  is  a  useful  and  valuable  member  of 
society,  or,  what  is  more,  the  opportunity  of  serving  as  such, 
the  realization  that  the  fruits  of  his  labor,  however  circuitous  the 
route  may  be,  will  ultimately  reach  the  people  and  contribute 
towards  its  progress. 

If  this  problem  which  deeply  affects  the  whole  status  of  Jewish 
scholarship  in  this  country  is  to  be  solved,  I  believe  there  is  only 
one  solution  for  it,  a  solution  about  which  we  in  America  cannot 
be  doubtful.    For  if  there  is  anything  which  is  characteristic  of  this 


Function  op  Jewish  Learning  in  America         135 

country  it  is  its  tendency  towards  corporate  endeavor,  its  ability 
to  merge  the  narrow  and  sluggish  rivulets  of  individual  energy  into 
the  broad  and  swift  current  of  a  corporation  or  society.  "When 
an  American  has  an  idea,"  quoth  a  famous  French  writer,  "he 
directly  seeks  a  second  American  to  share  it.  If  there  be  three,  they 
elect  a  president  and  two  secretaries.  Given  four,  they  name  a 
keeper  of  records  and  the  office  is  ready  for  work;  five,  they  con- 
vene a  general  meeting  and  the  society  is  fully  constituted."  The 
number  of  Jewish  scholars  in  this  country  has,  praise  be  to  Heaven, 
long  ago  reached  the  minimum  required  by  the  French  writer. 
We  have  a  goodly  number  of  men  who  as  professional  scholars  are 
actively  engaged  in  the  various  branches  of  Jewish  learning  and 
we  have  many  more  who  are  interested  in  it  passively  as  amateurs 
and  sympathizers,  and  yet  there  is  not  a  single  society  or  organiza- 
tion which  should  represent  the  brotherhood  of  Jewish  scholars  to 
themselves  and  to  the  world.  There  is  in  this  country  a  Society 
of  Biblical  Literature,  made  up,  with  few  exceptions,  of  Christian 
theologians;  there  is  an  American  Oriental  Society,  but  there  is 
no  corresponding  organization  for  the  wide  field  of  Jewish  scholar- 
ship. What  we  need  is  a  Society  of  Jewish  Learning  which  shall 
bring  the  scholars  scattered  all  over  this  land  into  personal  contact 
with  one  another  and  shall  set  the  standards  of  Jewish  scholarship. 
At  the  periodical  meetings  held  by  the  society  the  scholars  will  sub- 
mit to  one  another,  both  for  instruction  and  inspection,  the  fruits 
of  their  research,  and  at  an  annual  gathering  the  broad  lines  of 
progress  in  the  field  of  Jewish  scholarship  will  be  made  known  to 
the  outside  world.  Such  a  society  will  no  doubt  provide  a  consider- 
able amount  of  that  stimulus  and  encouragement  which  Jewish 
scholarship  needs  and  up  to  the  present  still  lacks. 

Yet  another  organization  which  shall  even  more  directly  render 
Jewish  scholarship  useful  to  Jewish  life  is  still  a  desideratum  in 
this  country.  At  present  the  Jewish  scholar  in  America  who  may 
feel  inclined  to  share  with  his  people  the  fruits  of  his  endeavors 
and  to  contribute  his  mite  towards  the  shaping  of  Jewish  com- 
munal life  has  no  means  of  doing  so.  without  exceeding  those 
limits  of  propriety  with  which  a  wise  convention  hedges  him  around. 
The  medium  of  the  book  unfortunately  reaches  but  tlic  few  and 
there  is  no  journalistic  or  social  vehicle  of  which  the  Jewish  scholar 
can  avail  himself  without  loss  of  dignity,  while  the  non-.Tewinh 


136  Students'  Aukual 

agencies  which  are  generally  far  more  effective  in  reaching  the 
Jewish  public  are,  as  a  rule,  hermetically  closed  to  him.  Now  what 
is  still  a  consummation  to  be  wished  for  here,  is  an  accomplished 
fact  in  Germany.  German  Jewry,  which  numbers  not  quite  one- 
fourth  of  the  Jewry  of  America,  can  boast  of  no  less  than  221 
societies  for  Jewish  History  and  Literature  which  are  primarily 
engaged  in  the  popularization  of  Jewish  learning  and  offer  the 
Jewish  scholar  an  effective  and  yet  dignified  opportunity  to  com- 
municate himself  to  the  Jewish  public.  There  is  scarcely  a  town 
in  Germany  which  does  not  possess  such  a  society,  and  in  many 
cases  the  local  society  is  identical  in  its  membership  with  that  of 
the  entire  community.  In  these  societies  the  whole  immense  range 
of  Jewish  thought  and  life  is  viewed  in  the  broad  perspective  of 
Jewish  learning,  whether  it  be  a  topic  such  as  "the  logical  founda- 
tions of  the  belief  in  God,"  or  some  practical  problem  of  German 
Jewish  life.  These  221  societies  are  united  in  a  large  central  or- 
ganization, at  the  head  of  which  are  to  be  found  some  of  the 
leading  scholars  and  some  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  affairs  of 
German  Jewry.  Of  course,  I  do  not  contend  that  this  German 
model  must  or  can  be  exactly  reproduced  in  this  country.  Condi- 
tions here  are  vastly  different  and  I  have  picked  up  sufficient 
American  patriotism  to  persuade  myself  that  in  many  respects  we 
can  do  things  better  than  the  people  on  the  other  side.  But  the 
fundamental  idea  underlying  this  organization  which  has  in  part 
been  also  imitated  in  England  is  an  absolute  necessity  in  this 
country,  if  Jewish  learning,  instead  of  becoming  a  dead  weight  upon 
American  Jewry,  shall  again  be  a  tree  of  life  for  the  Jewish 
people  and  exercise  a  steadying  and  ennobling  influence  on  the 
life  and  thought  of  this  community. 

And  finally,  whatever  we  decide  to  do  in  support  of  Jewish 
learning  in  America,  let  us  do  it  quickly.  We  live  in  a  critical 
moment  of  our  history,  critical  in  the  literal  sense  of  the  word, 
for  the  very  next  step  will  be  decisive  for  the  future  course  of  our 
development.  The  Jewish  people  whose  life  has  not  been  allowed 
to  flow  in  a  broad  and  smooth  riverbed,  resembles  that  wonderful 
natural  phenomenon,  the  geysers  or  intermittent  springs,  which, 
having  accumulated  tremendous  forces  under  ground,  suddenly 
shoot  forth  to  great  heights  and  then  remain  silent.  We  in 
America  are  on  the  eve  of  such  a  magnificent  outburst,  for  we 


Function  of  Jewish  Learning  in  America  137 

have  been  gradually  and  unobservedly  accumulating  the  im- 
mense stores  of  energy  of  European  Jewry,  and  they  are  now  seek- 
ing an  outlet.  Woe  to  us  if  we  allow  the  next  spurting  forth  of 
our  strength  to  go  to  waste,  if  we  fail  to  catch  the  precious  liquid 
of  Jewish  productivity  and  to  preserve  it  for  the  future.  Now  is 
the  time  to  rear  the  structure  of  Jewish  learning  in  America  and 
to  secure  for  it  its  rightful  position  in  the  life  of  the  community. 
The  opportunities  which  are  at  our  disposal  now  may  be  lost  irre- 
trievably in  the  next  generation.  In  the  springtime  of  the  science 
of  Judaism  its  founders  looked  forward  to  the  moment  when  the 
child  of  their  care  would  be  taken  over  by  non-Jews  and  be 
granted  a  place  at  the  universities  as  a  part  of  the  general  culture 
of  mankind.  But  after  bitter  experience  has  shown  us  that  the 
hatred  of  the  Jew  has  penetrated  even  into  the  sacred  precincts  of 
science  and  that  Jewish  learning,  distorted  by  bias  and  prejudice, 
has  been  brandished  as  a  weapon  against  Judaism,  we  realize  more 
clearly  than  ever  that  we  are  the  natural  and  rightful  guardians 
of  our  own  vineyard.  And  standing,  as  we  do,  on  the  threshold  of 
a  new  period,  a  period  which  we  hope  will  figure  in  future  Jewish 
history  as  the  Rise  of  Jewish  Learning  in  America,  we  cannot  but 
be  guided  by  the  motto  of  the  wise  Hillel :  "If  I  am  not  for  myself, 
who  is  for  myself?*'  and,  above  all,  "If  not  now,  when  thenP' 


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